For Bob Dylan, Street-Legal must have felt like a clean break. It happened at a time of personal grief, not just for his divorce from Sara Lowndes, but the death of his idol, Elvis Presley. Pair that with the critical failure of Renaldo and Clara, as well as a relative lack of interest in his overlooked, underrated Live at the Budokan work, and Dylan was about ready to challenge expectations. For those who have heard Darkness at the Break of Noon and other assemblies of The Rundown Recordings, this will be no surprise. Street-Legal was not just a change brought on by the instrumental swap-outs of Live at the Budokan but a chance for Dylan to reconnect with the world around him, to put his subconscious writing on hold, and to develop a sense of perspective, freed from public expectation. All This Tangled Rope compiles live bootlegs from the 1978 tour and is a delightful document of what Dylan was trying to do at the time.
A tour of consequence, of a shifting sound which would build towards the religious trilogy, that is what All This Tangled Rope offers. Opener Changing of the Guards is an excellent start, an insightful ride through what Dylan would begin to offer on stage. Backing vocals, softer guitar moments, but a reliance on the wider instrumentals, the larger purpose brought on by saxophone additions. Every artist to do so had the trouble of separating themselves from the monumental work Bruce Springsteen was providing in the wider rock environment, and thankfully, Dylan manages to keep his distance from The Boss. Fiery damnation, the wheels of fire and the rehabilitation of old material are what All This Tangled Rope offers. A bootleg with a fitting title, a chance for Dylan to break free from cultural heroism and chart a route through disappointing but interesting waters.
Deep cuts like New Pony and Am I Your Stepchild, the latter never making it to the studio, are a sign of the oddities of the time. There are plenty of live-only songs from this period, and All This Tangled Rope is invaluable when it comes to hearing those moments. Fix It Ma and an early version of Coming from the Heart feature but are either dropped entirely or rewritten in time for the born-again Christian period. The performances themselves are amicable, often strong stage experiences. The fine blur Dylan had for the stage was a given, often taken for granted, hence the switch-up made to songs like Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and The Man in Me. Those Street-Legal songs are excellent, though there is a clear problem with some of these songs, their arrangements, which official release Trouble No More would highlight.
Between the inevitability of “oohs” from the backing vocals to the relatively uneventful, but occasional spark of guitar work, All This Tangled Rope highlights a less-than-vintage year for Dylan. He is still an entertaining performer, and there is plenty to love about the compilation, but it showcases an objectively lesser experience than what precedes these shows, what follows them, too. Those synth and vocoder additions are used in excess, a sad impact of the reserved and bold features which define Live at the Budokan. Elongations of words, shortening a few expected drags, it is the event of exploring a new tempo which interests Dylan here, but All This Tangled Rope highlights an excess at play. It undoes the best bits of the performances assembled here, which are still worth hearing, even if they fall a tad short of expectation.
